1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for electronically sterilizing fluids by destroying living organisms without adding chemicals or boiling the fluids to destroy these organisms.
The presence of microorganisms in liquids is undesirable in a variety of circumstances. for example. swimming or drinking water. milk. or blood. to name only a few. A number of methods have been developed to destroy these microorganisms.
Most potable water supplies utilize chlorination (chlorine additives) to destroy harmful organisms in the water in order to make water safe for human consumption. Heating a liquid until it reaches its boiling point is another common way to purify liquids. Likewise. water that is contaminated by microorganisms may be purified by adding silver or copper ions through the use of consumable silver or copper electrodes. Each of these methods for purifying liquid has drawbacks.
The addition of chemicals such as chlorine additives is an expensive process which requires large amounts of these chemicals in order to purify a significant amount of the liquid. A side effect of this process is that the chlorine additives. which remain in the liquid. themselves can have harmful effects depending upon the ultimate end use of the liquid. For example. adding chemicals to a sample of blood in order to kill a specific microorganisms may render the sample of blood useless, as the chemicals required to kill the microorganism can themselves be harmful or can cause mutation of the blood cells themselves and thus render the sample toxic while destroying the targeted microorganism.
Boiling a liquid like the addition of chemicals, is an expensive process, requiring the expenditure of a great deal of energy in order to process significant quantities of liquid. An additional drawback is that a great deal of time is needed to heat large quantities of liquid to their boiling point, thus limiting the amount of liquid that can be processed.
Finally. the addition of silver or copper ions through the use of consumable silver or copper electrodes requires complicated apparatus that is expensive and extremely liable to break down. The metal electrodes used to introduce the ions into the liquid have to be cleaned or completely replaced very frequently.
The present invention eliminates the need for chemical additives. such as chlorine. which can alter the basic H.sub.2 O content, boiling to remove the threat of harmful organisms, or the addition of metallic ions.